Preventing ROBO Mayhem

In today’s world of anywhere, anytime workplaces, access to information is easy, right? Yes, sometimes. The scenario of the remote home office or a small branch office that serves a few employees who are not close to headquarters is increasing exponentially as companies go global and technology allows us to work anywhere, anytime. Cost savings abound with less travel for employees from headquarters, faster customer service from remote offices, lower real estate expenditures and so on.

But what happens when there are technology issues? Let’s say there is a large construction company with several remote branch offices. The company can’t afford to have an on-premise IT staffer at every location, so it does what many companies do today: it outsources IT. This saves a lot of money on the payroll and other expenses. That is, until there are certain technology issues that don’t fit the mold.

For example, the contract IT worker is probably local, and not completely familiar with the construction company’s overall IT infrastructure. How much experience does he/she have, and in what area? Storage? Networking? Hardware? All of the above? And what if the contractor arrives, only to see that this remote office has disparate hardware and software configurations? Contractors are paid and trained to troubleshoot the centrally distributed hardware, software, networking, and other general technology issues. But then there is the all-too-often occasion of remote staffers who install their own hardware and applications. The contract IT worker may be able to troubleshoot problems, but if the source is not a “company owned” application or piece of hardware, he/she may not be authorized to fix it. How much time and productivity is lost just figuring out such system issues and attending to them? The same goes for security among other issues. Who has authorized access to the data and network, and to what extent? IT gets more complex. Time is lost, productivity decreases and ultimately, money is wasted.

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A converged infrastructure helps simplify IT in remote locations, allowing more efficiency, less expense, and better value by bringing together networking, server storage, and management in one place. An on-site unified solution can be managed centrally at the IT headquarters by IT professionals who have a complete understanding of the hardware and software that is supposed to be installed–and is installed—in remote offices, because it’s managed from the corporate IT office. It’s easy to deploy, which not only saves time up front, but also reduces the time spent troubleshooting. That is, time that allows the remote staff to focus on other business issues and resources. It also reduces the amount of errors, which results in more productivity overall.

A converged infrastructure ensures simple, cost effective IT operations without the fuss.